Rossa SubscribedOwner

A Ferrari did look good again until towards the very end and worked into 3rd. I expect Corvette might be testing things and hope for bop for Sebring which is the big race.
Another front engine car with Aston winning today....hummm....what up IMSA?

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Aston ran well and together the whole race, but BOY is the whole world mad at them for cancelling the top car program.

See Glick's Facebook page…..the stock value is in the tank too, apparently???

Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus tracks the building of the new race and street cars....but I think he may have used his personal James Glickenhaus FB page to lambast AM management decisions..

The motoring press is picking up the comments now!
Just google it...

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I think Jim Glickehaus' comments are really unwanted.
He speaks as a "one-man-band" team owner, while Aston Martin is a company that answers to its shareholders about the way the money is spent.
Not so long ago, the ACO launched the Hypercar category, and it suited Aston to enter their Valkyrie to aim at a win at Le Mans.
Then, a few months later, the ACO made an agreement with IMSA about "convergence", making now LMPh the top category.
Obviously that affects Aston' plans at a moment where they are restructuring the company,
What's the point of developing the Valkyrie if Hypercars aren't the top category, and it can't have a shot at winning?

The introduction of the LMDh platform has “damaged” Aston Martin’s financial conditions around its planned Valkyrie Le Mans Hypercar program according to Aston Martin Racing president David King.
The British manufacturer, which was due to debut the Multimatic-developed V12-powered production-based hypercar in the 2020-21 FIA World Endurance Championship season, halted work on the factory effort “a few weeks ago” when it became apparent customers would likely flock to the joint ACO-IMSA LMDh model instead.
Speaking to assembled media Saturday at Circuit of The Americas, site of this weekend’s WEC race, King explained that the selling of customer Valkyrie LMH cars was a “significant part” of the funding needed for the overall program.
He said “some facts” changed since Aston Martin’s initial commitment to the platform last June.
“We made a genuine commitment last year to bring Valkyrie into WEC,” King said.
“That’s a big thing for any company to commit to a major motorsport program like that; it’s a big investment and there’s always an element of risk in it.
“Of course we had to get a board approval for that last year.
“That board approval is based on an assumption that more sports car brands would come into hypercars and the class would flourish, maybe not in Year 1 but in Year 2 and we’d see a golden era of top-end sports car racing.”
King explained there was a “financial condition” around the approval of the program that would have seen Aston Martin recover some of its investment of the Valkyrie LMH cars by the third season through customer sales.
He wouldn’t say the number of customer race cars that would have needed to be sold.

Sportscar365 understands that R-Motorsport was among the targeted customers, although the Swiss operation recently pulled the plug on its Aston Martin DTM program.
“What we saw since that point, there wasn’t the new entrants, the commitments from other manufacturers that we were all hoping for, into hypercars,” King said.
“I think that meant the ACO and WEC had to pragmatically look at some backup options.
“The IMSA thing has been bubbling for some time and it came to a point where they announced in Daytona the intention for the IMSA convergence with the LMDh cars and that changed things for us.
“We think the market for customer race cars, for us, is damaged by that because a racing Valkyrie is an expensive car.
“It comes from a road car that costs £2.5 million ($3.2 million USD).
“If you are a private team and are set up to race Valkyries to win Le Mans and win WEC, you’re going to be spending many millions to buy your two cars to to get set up, and a very expensive program to run.
“Now those private teams will be able to, based on what we think other competitors will be able to do, will be able to buy premium-branded LMDh cars that are much cheaper to buy and run.
“We don’t think there’s a customer market that was there originally. We don’t know that for sure and we need some time to evaluate it.
“But it changes the conditions on which we got the project approved, so we have to take a pause and decide whether we should carry on with that or look at LMDh or look at staying with GTs.
“I don’t know what the outcome of that is going to be.”
King said the decision was not influenced with Lawrence Stroll’s recent £500 million ($656 million) investment into the company that will see the Racing Point F1 team owner become Aston Martin’s executive chairman.

“It’s got nothing to do with Lawrence Stroll coming in; it’s got nothing to do with the fact that we’ve had a tougher-than-expected financial year,” King said.
“I understand the disappointment it’s caused in the sport but there’s really nothing more behind it.”

King: “We Were About to Build a Car”

While Aston Martin had been silent on the status of the program for months since its initial announcement at Le Mans in June 2019, King said the company and its partners had been working “flat out” on the race car, which was due to hit the track in the spring.
“We’ve worked flat out since we announced in June last year to when we turned the gas off a couple of weeks ago,” he said.
“We were a long way advanced with the car.
“It would have had to run in the next couple of months to meet the start of next season. We were about to build a car.”
King said a deadline has not been established on a decision to potentially resume development for the LMH program or evaluate alternative options, which includes LMDh.
He confirmed Aston Martin will “probably” now be present at the IMSA-ACO steering committee meetings, with the next meeting scheduled for Tuesday in Daytona.

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A Ferrari did look good again until towards the very end and worked into 3rd. I expect Corvette might be testing things and hope for bop for Sebring which is the big race.
Another front engine car with Aston winning today....hummm....what up IMSA?

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Sebring ain't the big race for WEC, that be Le Mans. For IMSA it's the Rolex or even Petit (depending on points situation).
'You confusing the IMSA WSC for FIA WEC, by chance?

Sebring ain't the big race for WEC, that be Le Mans. For IMSA it's the Rolex or even Petit (depending on points situation).
'You confusing the IMSA WSC for FIA WEC, by chance?

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No not confusing it...Sebring is one of the big major IMSA races. Daytona, Sebring LeMans....Winning Sebring is a huge deal for the car manufacturers and drivers. Winning 12hrs at Sebring is harder on cars and drivers than any of the others....not my words but car manufacturers and drivers.

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'Know all about which witch is which (btw, Le Mans isn't an IMSA championship race); I was referring to your "Another front engine car with Aston winning today....hummm....what up IMSA?" regarding the IMSA/FIA confusion.

Rossa SubscribedOwner

Not really personal to William, (who I really enjoy reading!) but more to the point of AM.

Glick (Mr. G., is what I affectionately call him to his face and in correspondence)..if he needs to build ONE car, he builds ONE car.
If he sell customer cars, well they must want to buy one!

So if AM is as close as "they say" to really rolling out a car, in primer, duct tape, bubble gum, tie wire..sponsors, no sponsors.....they should nut up and do it!

All this hand wringing about Sales and The Market, equity (Goodwill anyone??) and the market..well that shows you the Bean Counters (or Stroll) have taken the wheel and they might as well quit right now, on cars, and start making baby strollers (Ha! I made a funny!) and tampons.....

Aston Martin’s decision is pretty easy to understand really. Their Hypercar program was to be partially funded by selling Valkyries to privateers.
Now, with the ACO-IMSA convergence, they won't be able to do that. LMDh cars will be sold at a fraction of the price of an Hypercar, and be just as competitive. Guess which one will attract private teams ! People like Jim Glickenhaus can imagine some conspiracy theory if they want, but this is a simple commercial decision.

What is strange really, is that the ACO courted sportscar manufacturers (Porsche, McLaren, Aston Martin, Toyota, Koenigsweg, Peugeot, ByKolles, SCG) by creating a Hypercar top category for them to compete at Le Mans with cars LESS restricted than the GTE and capable of winning outright.
Then only a few months later, the same ACO introduced a rival category with budget limits through mandatory chassis, but with equal performances.

It seems that the ACO make their rules as they go along, without any notion of commercial imperatives, and shoot themselves in the foot doing so.